The Way It Is, Bro

Taking a heads-up cue from weblogger George Hunka of Superfluities, I tuned into the instant rerun of this season's opening episode of the NBC hit show, The Apprentice tonight, my first time ever, and I must say that George's conclusion that the show's producers (of whom the show's star, Donald Trump, is one) "have come up with a satire of the very business world to which they kneel and pay homage," seems to me rather misplaced. There was nothing the least satirical in what I witnessed tonight. With due allowance made for the TV medium and its requirements, as a distilled, small-scale epitome of how high-powered businessmen and businesswomen, and the high-powered business world, behave and operate (using the term high-powered here as opposed to neighborhood and mom-and-pop type businesses), it was all pretty much spot-on, and straight-up; the way it is in the real high-powered business world (and, yes, I speak from first-hand experience). The overwhelming majority of young Trump wannabes are indeed "two dimensional ... scheming social climbers utterly crippled in their efforts by their own stupidity and egotism," the females especially (in the real high-powered business world, as on the show, they're also the most vicious; far more so than the males). And, yes, a "false, often foul-mouthed affability ill-conceals the obvious contempt [they] feel for each other." And, yes, and most especially, "[w]hile there's a lot of talk ... about imagination ... it's the imagination of a rat discovering a faster way to the cheese." How could, or should, it be otherwise? The cheese is, after all, what it's all about in the world of high-powered business. To paraphrase a venerated American: "The cheese isn't everything. It's the only thing."

As to the show itself, fascinating, and, I'm embarrassed to confess, curiously riveting, The Donald most particularly, troglodyte though he most certainly appears to be. But unlike George, I didn't find Trump (or his two assistants, both of whom struck me as particularly competent high-powered business types) to be at all arbitrary or capricious. Seemed to me that in his remarks and judgments he showed himself to be a first-rate, high-powered executive type: sharp, knowledgeable, direct, and with a bullshit factor of zero. That has a certain charm of its own, you know.

My thanks to George for the heads-up. I think I'm going to watch this show next week, addicting as I suspect watching it might become.

Nostalgia is a powerful narcotic, is it not?